In Egypt, an archaeologist and part-time belly-dancer named Molly has been hired by the Tech II corporation to oversee their latest
construction process and make sure their workers don’t trample on any
historical artifacts. Molly sends a
letter to her news reporter friend April O’Neil, inviting her to
Egypt for an exclusive on the project.

In Northampton, April packs her things and piles into the
limo waiting to take her to the airport.
She invites the Turtles to join her, but they decline.

In Egypt, the foreman of the Tech II project is up in
arms, as all the local workers have begun behaving like zombies. Worse yet, they’ve uncovered several
artifacts and he fears that the company’s time table will be thrown off by the
excavation. Molly tries to introduce
April to the foreman, but he blows her off in a stressed out rage. Molly shrugs and then invites April back to
camp to watch her belly dance. The dance
is interrupted by a worker, who shows Molly a crest he found. April faxes a photo of the crest back to the
sewer lair, asking if the Turtles can dig anything up on it.

Don does some research and learns that it is the crest of
Aunkamen. Aunkamen was a magician who
tried to usurp the throne of Pharaoh by mentally enslaving the masses and
turning inanimate objects to life with his sorcery. He was defeated and entombed, but left a
prophecy declaring that once his body is discovered, he shall rise from the
grave and take over the world. Realizing
the danger, the Turtles prepare to go to Egypt.

Back in Egypt, the zombified workers uncover a mysterious
tomb. Molly and April go inside and are
met by a hulking, dog-headed brute calling himself the Jackal. As the right hand man of Aunkamen, the Jackal
relates their scheme to enslave all humanity.
As for Molly and April, the Jackal says that they shall be the
first additions to Aunkamen’s harem. Molly
and April attempt to flee, but the Jackal uses his staff, Karnak, to bring
statues of Thoth and Ramses to life.
They capture Molly and April and force them to wear revealing outfits.

Back in Northampton, the Turtles place a fake delivery
order from “the Tundra Museum of Fine Art”, requesting that four statues by
famed Renaissance artists Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael be
overnighted to a museum in Egypt. After
a lengthy plane ride, the Turtles arrive in Egypt. They steal some disguises and camels and trek
toward the camp site. Some zombified
workers attack them, but they make short work of the slaves. At the entrance to the tomb, they’re met by
sword-wielding mummies, but they explode into dust with just a couple hits.

Inside the tomb, the Jackal addresses the casket of Aunkamen,
who is slowly reviving. The Jackal smells
the presence of intruders and decides to use Karnak to bring more statues and
mummies to life to attack them. The
Turtles are attacked by the army and after a quick brawl emerge victorious. The Jackal attacks them in person, but proves
to be mostly bluster. Leonardo gets
Karnak away from him and destroys it, turning the Jackal back into an inanimate
statue.

The Turtles rush to the main chamber and find Molly and
April. Before they can leave, however,
Aunkamen rises from his casket and attacks.
He unleashes a cyclone of knives that threatens to shred the
Turtles. Leo decides to use Aunkamen’s
powers against him and tells Don to stand by a load-bearing pillar and mock
Aunkamen until he starts throwing heavier objects. Aunkamen hurls a statue of Ramses at Don, who
dodges it and allows the statue to shatter the pillar. The entire tomb caves in, burying Aunkamen,
but the Turtles escape just in time.

Back in Northampton, the Turtles watch April’s news
broadcast from the ruins in Egypt. Molly
says that while the tomb has caved in, they retrieved enough artifacts that
they needn’t bother with another excavation.
Molly then personally thanks her four friends who saved her from the
cave-in. The Turtles celebrate the acknowledgment.

Turtle Tips:

*This issue marks the only Mirage TMNT comic to ever give
April the occupation of news reporter.

*This issue was published as part of the guest era and is
thus not in continuity with the Mirage TMNT “proper”.

*This issue received a second printing in April, 1992
with a new cover by Bode’ and all new colors by Bill Fitts. Incidentally, in the color version by Fitts,
April is inexplicably black. For the
2013 IDW trade paperback collection Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classics
Volume 4, a new coloring job by Digikore Design Limited was done, restoring
April’s Caucasian skin tone.

Review:

So far as the goofy comedy installments of the TMNT Vol.
1 “guest era” are concerned, Mark Bode’s were probably the least
offensive. I think it helps that his stories
were each contained to a single issue, told developed plots instead of relying
on insipid “ran-dumb” bullshit and did I mention that they’re only an issue
long and don’t overstay their fucking welcome for three miserable months? Yeah, that’s really a key factor,
there.

As with Mark Bode’s last guest issue, TMNT (Vol. 1) #18,
he strikes a balance between silliness and action, never letting the goofy camp completely overtake the storyline. Yeah,
the Turtles walk around on the streets in broad daylight and nobody cares and
the villains are all silly cartoon characters and April’s a news reporter like
in the cartoon for some reason, but there’s an actual story and linear plot
that gets played out. Other comedy
installments in the guest era, mainly those by Mark Martin and Hedden &
McWeeney, preferred to just play things out in an unfocused “stream of
consciousness” manner as the characters bounce from one nonsense set piece to
another with no rhyme or reason until the page count runs out. Mark Bode’s silly offerings are a welcomed
breath of fresh air when compared to those piping hot buckets of molten refuse.

TMNT #32 is a whopping 46 pages, yet it still feels
unfortunately hurried. Characters like
Molly aren’t very fleshed out (Bode’ makes a big ado about her belly dancing
prowess at the beginning, but it doesn’t come into play at all later on) and
there are some meaningless diversions, such as the foreman (who is introduced
like he’ll be a villain or something, but disappears altogether). The characters are all in a race to get the
story over with rather than use the impressive length to focus on what matters
and let the plot sink in. There’s also
some weirdness, like the sewer lair being in Northampton instead of New York City
and the entirety of Egypt being the pyramids (seriously, the Turtles mail themselves
to “Egypt” and wind up at almost the exact location they need to be).

But Bode’ has an art style that’s really attractive and,
much like his writing, fuses silly cartoonishness with gritty action. What I like most are his
layouts; he breaks everything up into
large panels, but leaves a considerable amount of empty space between them. Bode’ then proceeds to place all dialogue and
sound effects in those margins so as not to obscure his artwork. It’s very unique and allows the reader to
fully appreciate Bode’s penciling (and Eastman’s inking and Talbot’s toning).

Bode’ strangely repeats the same hieroglyphics decoder on
page 1 and page 13, giving the impression that decoding the glyphs would be of
some crucial importance or at least a neat diversion. Unfortunately, Bode’ puts next to no
hieroglyphics in the backgrounds of any of his art, so the effect is mostly
unrealized. Unless “Batman is god” and a
reference to Vaughn Bode’s “Cheech Wizard” is vital.

I guess my only real problem, and the problem I have with
nearly every “comedy” issue in the TMNT Vol. 1 guest era is that, well, it’s not
funny. I snickered a bit at the Jackal’s childish pyramid blueprints, but beyond that all the jokes and asides fell flat (Bode' resorts to the mommy/mummy gag TWICE). This
issue is more entertaining for the unobstructed visuals that Bode’ provides and
it’s a pleasant diversion from the other “hilarious” guest issues that were
leagues worse than this one.

Grade: C (as in, “Could the world finally be ready for a
black April? Not yet, but perhaps soon…”)

Eastman has claimed that April was intended to be black (as he says she was based off a black girl he was dating at the time), while Laird says she was always meant to be part Irish and Caucasian.

Still, she'd already been portrayed as white in the color covers for Mirage well before 1990, so the decision to make her black in the reprint of #32 was a pretty late in the game decision on Eastman's part (if he did in fact tell Fitts to color her that way).

When I read through Volume 1 of TMNT, I often found myself trying to fit the guest issues into canon, or at least more of them than Laird allows -- with some of them like "The River" and Veitch's stories this was easy, while others just had to be non-canon like the Hedden/McWeeney awfulness.

I liked Bode's first guest issue, so I was excited for this one, but I just (being the OCD fanboy I am) could NOT get over April being a reporter in a Mirage comic. How and why would they let that through?

Though, to be fair, a lot of the guest issues that veered more to comedy seem to take more inspiration from the cartoon than Eastman/Laird (constant sewer lair pizza stuff)

As for April being a reporter, maybe she was just trying a short-lived gig as a journalist? Its not like Mirage April had any real major occupation either. She always seemed to be working crap jobs as a waiter or something like in TMNT #14.

I like to consider Mark Bode's stories in with Mirage continuity as canon, as they don't feel that silly to me. Its not like an Egyptian Jackal coming to life is any different than the usual creatures we see show up in Mirage, especially in the second volume of Tales.